MealPal Reviews 3,318

Do not sign up with this company! They charge you a recurring monthly fee without sending you any notifications of you being added to the subscription plan. In central London, the choice on offer is very limited too!

I work in Central London (Liverpool Street) and the options available are rubbish. All low quality places, with cheapest-possible menu options.
The fact you sign up to a "one time payment" which actually turns out to be a subscription is completely disingenuous, as well as the fact they make it almost too easy to sign up - I was almost surprised as it happened at one button click in the app - but then if I want to cancel, I have to jump through various hoops and have to email, rather than just doing it through the app.

Horrible company - never warned me that old meals were expiring (in the midst of pandemic) and charged me for another 12 when NO ONE was going to offices. After protest they refunded the new charge, with a snarky “it’s in the contract that meals expire at the end of the year” comment. If you were good citizens, you could have informed me the meal credits were expiring — at which point I could have offered them to friends or homeless folks or even first responders/medical people. Thoughtless, selfish company — will never ever get my business again.

Cancel mealpal after my lunch was canceled 3x times and other things. According to consumer service, my subscription is every 30 days. Surprised, they backtrack it by one day, so I lose a meal. They think I won't check my banking statement. VERY UNETHICAL. Shady business.

Mealpal is beyond scammy, they are infurating to deal with and use all sorts of unethical ways to bilk you from your money, particularly when you realize you don't want to continue their service. And then when you actually DO navigate the insane puzzle that is canceling your account, you might be informed you won't be getting any refund.

Get ready to part ways with your hard earned money unless you were diligent and clever enough to realize they still try to keep you locked in despite your best attempts to leave!

You can attempt to cancel your membership in the app. Good luck. After a modest EIGHT steps, you still have to write a personal email to them in order for them to fully take action. Absolutely astounding.

Hopefully, the following instructions help others not have to part ways with their hard earned money. In the app, you have to do the following:

• 1: Find the "change plan" button (wherever it is) and tap it

• 2: "Which plan would you like next?" --> look past the UI to find the indiscriminate gray text that says "Hold or Cancel" (which doesn't look tappable, but is), and tap it

• 3: (after clicking hold or cancel): "XYZ is your plan, what would you like to change it to?" --> look past the UI to find the indiscriminate gray text that says "Change plan for next cycle" (which doesn't look tappable, but is), and tap it

• 4: "Which plan would you like next?" --> look past the UI to find the indiscriminate gray text that says "Hold or Cancel" (which doesn't look tappable, but is), and tap it

• 5: an interface that scares you into not canceling, but instead holding your plan in place. Look past the big orange button to "hold your plan" and instead to the indiscriminate gray text saying "Cancel account" (which doesn't look tappable, but is), and tap it

• 6: a modal dialog that comes up attempting to further scare you into not canceling lest you get charged $19 to come back. Look past the big orange "Don't Cancel" button to the indiscriminate text saying "Cancel Anyway" (which doesn't look tappable, but is), and tap it

• 7: look past the UI that talks about how you hold your account or change your plan to notice the indiscriminate small text at the top of the screen saying you have to send an email to change at mealpal dot com in order to cancel.

• 8 (yes, EIGHT): write an actual email to the specified email address asserting you want to cancel. Hopefully there won't be a ninth step of turning down a "please stay with us" pitch in order to fully effectuate the cancel. For me it took only a modest EIGHT steps.

Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. I am beyond disappointed.

This service went ahead with putting me on a subscription without my consent after I wanted to try a trial. It’s criminal and they have stolen money from me. Do not give them your credit card details as they will charge you without asking.

I have to second a lot of reviewers on here.

Got an email saying £30 is credited to my account if I reactivate it. As soon as I log into the account and click "Reactivate": 2 options become available one for £5 per 12 meals. There was No indication on how much i will get charged. I clicked the first option and automatically got GBP 62 debited from my account. There is no number to contact. To cancel you have yo email their generic email.

Not fair play - very deceiving. Appalling system. Please please be careful!

They don't deliver in your neighborhood and its impossible to tell from their virtually non-existent maps. Don't waste your money. Unless you live next to the restaurants you will almost never receive your food. You are much better off just ordering directly from the restaurants involved.

I don't like the fact that I can't check what restaurant/meal options there are before paying for a plan.

I signed up with MealPal around Oct/19. Upon setting up a meal plan with them, I enjoyed the options available around my work place in downtown Toronto. The problem started when COVID hit in Mar/20. Initially, I was allowed to carry over unused meals from one month to another month, which I appreciated. When workplaces closed in Mar/20, I asked for a hold on my plan. The hold was allowed for a couple of months with the condition that I re-activate it as soon as possible when the workplaces open again. I was still carrying unused meals from Feb/20 and was signed up for a new 12-meal plan when Mar/20 started. Hence, I had a carry-over of 16 meals.

When I asked for a refund in Oct/20 as I was losing my job in Dec/20, I got responses from different Associates at different times. Each one asked me to provide them the background on my unused meals and why I could not redeem those meals earlier. They also kept questioning me on the charges and refunds. Finally, I lost my patience in Dec/20 when they kept telling me that MealPal did not owe me any refund on unused meals. I told them to use those unused meals as a Christmas gift for the hungry and homeless people.

Obviously, this was a very frustrating experience with a company that a lot of downtown Toronto workers use for their meal programs. After losing a month's meals plus 4 additional carry-over meals, I recommend new signors to check the terms and conditions closely before you sign up on a monthly plan.

Very dodgy way to get you into a subscription. When I initially used MealPal I was quite happy with it. Once I didn't use it enough, I cancelled my subscription. No problem. The frustration started when my subscription was automatically re-activated when I ONLY logged into my account. Didn't complain, used the subscription and then cancelled my account.

That was 8 months ago. Yesterday may account was charged out of the blue with the maximum subscription. So the day after I logged in again to see what was going on. Wrote an email to them and their response was "I do see your account was previously cancelled however I'm also seeing you logged in and reactivated your account today for a new 30 day plan. Do you not recall doing this?".

This is not acceptable and if I don't get an explanation I am going to take that further. Do not trust this company.

scam with all fake reviews on this trust pilot

I longed forgot the reason why I would never use the company again that I had cancelled and deleted the app more than 2 years ago. I just got an email invite of 40%off deal offer and wanted to find out what the offer was. No price listed and choice plan in the email except the "40%off deal expires midnight today". I clicked the button, immediately took me to the site that needed my password to login. Once logged in, my account activated and agreed to the plan choice. There is really shady UI that no action choice except to prompt you to continue taking this plan selection and hoping to get to the next step. I tried to find out my account setting and hope that I didn't make the purchase or it had not yet been processed. The next hours I spent was google and looking for info of where MealPal service in NYC and Brooklyn area, how do I contact them, samples restaurants in my area (I hope they serve Brooklyn); I was in good faith of reinstate the service if it worked out for me.
Shady and such dishonesty, and tricky UI practices to luring customers. I sent them an email explaining the situation, it defaulted setting my subject line to iPhone feedbacks. Can't find contact info and no clearing listing of customer help. You need to keep clicking and making these choices to reveal your options. My account page didn't make option to me until I selected a plan choice and my credit card immediately charged.
When I see reviews that flushed with words of scam, preying, dishonest... And now I remembered why I cancelled it last time and deleted the app on my phone.
How can one business able to store over 2 years payment info and process with one click on an inactive account?

Misleading information and will trick you into opening the account and over charge you.

A child can click open the app and buy a new meal plan without authentication.

Poor choice of food and poor quality - not what they advertised to be.

I am quite disappointed about meal pal. I put my account on hold during the pandemic and it still has 14 unused meals. They refused to refund unless I am willing to purchase another rollover plan. 6 meal plan only can rollover 6 meals, If I want to rollover my 14 unused meals, I have to purchase a 16 meal plan, Otherwise I just need to accept that my unused 14 meals are expired.This is so ridiculous, what a shame. I want to ask meal pal Is this an honest and right way doing business ???????

These scumbags profit off of people affected by the pandemic with surprise auto-renewal, just steal money from your bank and never respond. It's a criminal scam preying on people in quarantine, not an app or an actual service. Can only hope these crooks eventually wind up in jail or worse.

It's probably due to the pandemic but something's clearly changed at this company.
I’ve been using happily them for years in central London (since 2018). I placed the account on hold for the pandemic. Used it sporadically last year when I could (one of very few who were able to use it in central).
Then had to pause on 3rd lockdown. Started it up again in April this year but there is just nothing available anymore in the area (about 80% less vendors offered). Even with everything opening up again.
I wanted to therefore use what I had left and cancel the account.
I had around six meals rolled over and paid for from previous months, I was told these couldn’t be used without an active account and therefore paying for another month. A farcical system.
Furthermore they refused to refund the value of these meals to me even though there is nothing really to use them anymore.
I’ve just cancelled my account and asked them to remove my personal data.
All of the above conversation was over the span of over a week, their response times are pretty shocking with absolutely zero customer care.
Real shame as thought this was a great service at the start.

The idea behind this concept is good, however it is very badly executed. Prior to paying for a subscription you are shown a map with many restaurants. Beware after MealPal has collected money from you, you will then see a different map with the actual restaurants available, which are about 1/10 of the ones advertised on the initial map. Additionally, out of these very few restaurants that are still shown as available, most are also closed or no longer work with MealPal.
So only after having been charged for a month upfront I was able to find out that there are actually no restaurants in my area (which is Central London btw, so good luck with any other area!).
If you want to pay for a subscription that you’ll never be able to use and have a headache every time you try to contact the customer service then this is the perfect app for you! On the other hand, if you just want to get some lunch then do yourself a favour and look elsewhere as MealPal is clearly not capable of offering this very simple service to you.

Normal times experience were about 3* - not too much participating establishments around. Most of the best weren't in. Often - smaller portions for mealpal in those participating. Too rigid options.

Then pandemic came. People were forced to sit at home, many establishments had to close. And I just paid for next month. What Mealpal did about that? Nothing. Just pretended as if nothing happened. No option to return money. Not even an option to freeze current cycle - only hold for next one. Jeez, you are greedy!

Edit: I have contacted Mealpal support for refund, based on their reply here, and was outright rejected.

MealPal charged me $90+ per month on my credit card for the last 1.5 year (18 months) since July 2019 every month without my authorization and my knowledge. They have been playing word games with their so-called ‘auto-renew’ monthly subscription to swindle money from customers. I never ever subscribed to their monthly plan. But once they got my credit card number for the first time, they continued to charge me for the last 18 months. Even to today, they still owe me over $1000, and they claimed that its because of their so-called "monthly auto subscription" that I never even subscribed to. I did not use their so-called monthly service at all and did not purchase a single meal. They just took the money without my authorization, and they kept the money to themselves without providing ANY service to me, or to the restaurant. In the meantime, they misled merchants by making them think that MealPal can bring them a lot of customers; but in actuality, so many of them like me are not truly customers of the restaurants at all. It is a shame that a company has to get money through cheating, especially during the Pandemic, where people cannot utilize this service at all. The way MealPal running business (charging people monthly fees without their authorization) has been complained about by so many consumers as Scam and Fraud on the BBB website and Social Media.